Album Reviews

First, compared to the serpentine complexity of Bitches Brew he stripped down the sound, with Herbie Hancock on Farfisa organ (!), John McLaughlin playing killer wah-wah drenched guitar, Billy Cobham on drums, Michael Henderson on Fender bass and Steve Grossman on saxophone. Plus of course, Miles.

"...dig the guitar and the bass—They are 'Far-in' Davis writes in the annotation that appeared on the original's front jacket. The guitar dominates as never before or since on a Davis album. In fact, listening to this now makes clear that Jeff Beck must have been inspired by this to write "Freeway Jam" on his 1976 album Blow By Blow. If not the similarities of loping rhythm and Herbie's "horn honking" keyboards are incredibly coincidental. You can hum Beck's melody as this plays and it fits in perfectly.

But no matter, this music to accompany a Jack Johnson bio-doc is as powerful as you'd hope a movie about the boxing legend would be.

Though it all came about almost by accident and was cut and pasted together by producer Teo Macero it sounds throughly and organically whole.

One great thing about reissues like this is it gets you to pull out oft played but long ignored records like this one. Along with In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, this record was the soundtrack to my "life in tatters" 1971 living at 1404 Commonwealth Avenue. Playing this record in either issue, brought me right back there. I could tell you the story of picking up three girls from Vancouver at the Mass Pike exit and my two roommates, but you're no doubt not interested.

I have two versions of this: one called A Tribute to Jack Johnson has catalog number KC30455 and features an iconic black and white photo of Miles on the cover with the annotation and film credits also on the cover. The illustration of Johnson in the yellow car is on the back. It's a "demo" copy on the red Columbia label. The second copy (S 30455) simply titled Jack Johnson is a "Radio Station Service" copy with the white sticker on the cover, which is the illustration of Jackson riding in the car. The back cover is the same as Mo-Fi's back cover and features two photos of Johnson and one of Davis that's the original photo used on the cover of the other edition and is the inside gatefold of the Mo-Fi edition, which more closely resembles this second "original". The label is the gray Columbia "Masterworks" label.

The "radio service" is "1A" on both sides, the red label one is "1A" on side one and "1F" on two, so I"m assuming the original is the "non-tribute" version.

I compared this reissue to the 1A original and both have their good qualities but the Mobile Fidelity reissue is more dynamic, has far deeper and more articulate bass and blacker backgrounds. It's somewhat brighter and more open on top too, which will either be good or not depending upon your system.Was great on mine!

Another great Mobile Fidelity Miles Davis reissue. There's not a bad one in the group (so far), many of which are better than the originals.